Chapter Three
Cai stood on a fallen lintel stone,
his arms folded over his chest. His perch gave him a good vantage
point over the ruins where the dormitory chambers had been, and he
was watching carefully. One, two, three. Step, parry, thrust. So
far he wasn’t displeased, except that Brother Wilfrid… “No, no,
no.” He leapt down and ran across the open, sunlit space. “Wilf,
your Viking just ran you straight through the heart. Don’t drop
your shield.”
“Why, you just told me not
to raise it, lest he strike me through the balls!”
Cai stepped back, lifting his
hands in despair. He let the dozen men gathered around him have
their laugh—joined briefly with it himself. In the week since the
raid, not much laughter had been heard at Fara. He took up position
behind Wilf and covered his shield hand with his own. He nodded to
Oslaf, Wilf’s fighting partner for this bout. Oslaf came forwards,
feinting with his sackcloth-covered sword. “Raise your shield. Now
lower. React. You can see what he’s going to do from the set of his
shoulders.” Especially when he’s poking at you like an old woman
chasing flies with a broomstick, but that can’t be helped.
“Predict him.
Better. Good.”
Signalling to the others that they
should continue the drill, Cai returned to his post. This was his
third session, and the best turnout yet. When he’d let it be known
two days before that he would be here with Broc’s donated arsenal,
only Oslaf and four others had appeared, glancing nervously over
their shoulders. Cai couldn’t blame them for their fears. The ruin
was a good place to practise—the one remaining wall shielded their
endeavours from the main hall, and rebuilding here was a low
priority, the displaced monks sleeping on makeshift cots in a barn,
where they rested the more easily for safety in numbers—but Aelfric
wouldn’t remain deceived for long. A handful of monks missing from
their duties during quiet hours was one thing. A dozen, though,
almost half the surviving complement…
Cai sensed movement behind him and
whipped round. “Benedict,” he said in relief, then recalled his
friend’s behaviour over the past few days and frowned. “Have you
come to join us? Or has our lord abbot sent you to smoke us
out?”
Benedict looked at the ground. He was
very pale. “I should be insulted that you ask. But I
understand.”
“To join us, then?” Cai
jumped down. “Did something change your mind?”
“I am not to touch Oslaf,”
Ben told him. Cai raised an eyebrow—nobody was touching anybody
these days, not now that they all slept like frightened puppies in
a barn. “No,” Ben said intensely, reading his thought. “Not like
that. I am not to lay hand on him even in friendship. Nor am I to
speak to him, go near him or have dealings with him at all beyond
the absolute necessities of work.”
“Dear God. Aelfric told you
this?”
“I wasn’t accorded that
much dignity. It was Laban, his chief aide.”
“Will you obey?”
“For Oslaf’s sake—yes, I
will.”
“But…it’s brutal.
Why?”
“Because if I don’t, the
punishment will fall on Oslaf, not on me.”
Cai shook his head. He could see the
crude cleverness of such tactics, but… “Punishment? Look at you,
Ben. You could snap Laban over your knee like a twig. Aelfric too,
for that matter.”
“Yet I can’t shelter Oslaf from
their condemnation. From being named a pervert, as I have been
named. They’ll do it before everyone, Laban said. Stand him in
front of all his brethren and…” Benedict’s voice scraped into
silence. Then he looked up, meeting Cai’s gaze with hunted
desperation. “I can’t say any more. What if he’s right, Cai? What
if we are impure in the sight of the Lord? I would send my own soul
to hell if I had to, but not his—not Oslaf’s.”
Shards of broken glass seemed to move
in Cai’s throat. He stood in miserable silence, trying to work out
what had been impure about his love for Leof. “All right,” he said
eventually. “Do what you think is best. You shouldn’t have come
here, you know—if Aelfric scares you so.”
“Well, he does. But I gave
it thought, and the Vikings scare me more.” He smiled uncertainly
and looked more like his old self. “Will you teach me to fight,
Brother?”
Cai smiled too. “Gladly. You present
me with a problem, though—we don’t have enough weapons to go
round.”
Ben scanned the dormitory ruins.
His gaze fell on the pile of half-burned rafters Eyulf had begun
chopping up for firewood. “No, but by the grace of God we have
plenty of big sticks. Where I come from, those are our weapons.
Maybe I have something to teach you.”
Cai followed him curiously. For all
his size, Ben was such a gentle soul. Cai couldn’t imagine him
wielding anything more deadly than a ploughshare. Still, those had
been beaten into swords before now. Lifting a long, straight stick
from the pile, Ben knocked ash off the end of it and handed it to
Cai. “Here. Hold it with your hands apart, like this.”
“Why me?”
“I haven’t been forbidden to look
at you—not yet, anyway. Or to beat you hollow.”
There was a glimmer of challenge in
Ben’s eyes. Deciding he liked that better than the pained anxiety,
Cai hefted the stick. It couldn’t be that hard. “Oh, feel free to
try.”
Ben grabbed himself a length of wood
and grinned at Cai disarmingly. “Well, with a beginner,
I’d…”
He moved, and Cai’s legs shot out from
under him, swiped from behind by a blow he’d never seen coming. He
landed on his backside in the dust. Another clatter of laughter
arose from the monks, and he looked around him wryly. Well, he had
been drilling them harshly. Maybe the sight of their tormentor
knocked on his arse was refreshing to them. “Interesting,” he said,
taking Ben’s hand and scrambling up. “Please. Show me.”
“You know, at the very last
instant you tripped over your robes. Try tucking them up into your
belt—on one side, anyway. You could use the protection on the
other. Whichever leg you lead with when you wield a
sword.”
Too intrigued to hesitate, Cai hitched
up his cassock’s heavy hem and wrapped it once over his belt. Ben
did likewise, and Cai nodded at his brethren, some of whom were
copying the action. “Yes, you lot. Try it like that. And get on
with your drills—no need to watch my humiliation.”
Ben corrected his stance and his grip
on the pole. Then the two faced each other, circling warily. Ben
came forwards, slowly enough this time for Cai to see his intent,
and their sticks locked at right angles with a loud crack. Nodding
satisfaction, Ben stepped back and tried for the leg-swipe
manoeuvre again. He was taking it easy on purpose, but Cai
understood how a twisting dance step would take him out of
range—balanced and jumped and got around him in time to try for the
drop move himself. Ben sidestepped with unlikely speed, spun round
and delivered a thump that shook Cai to the bone through the
defending pole.
Fires leapt up in Cai’s breast.
He hadn’t liked fighting for Broc, but those ragged hill-warriors
who took him on had soon learned to regret it. He struck back
powerfully, knocking a grunt and a startled laugh from his
opponent, and they set to in good earnest. Splinters flew from the
poles as they clashed. This was a battlefield art, not an elegant
one, and after being ditched to the ground twice more, Cai took it
to close quarters with a kind of joyous rage. It was good not to
think. It was good to struggle hotly with a man of his own
strength—stronger, if he let himself admit it. He braced, Ben’s
corded bare thigh pressing tight against his, then thrust him back,
gasping. A heat like arousal flared through him. God, maybe
he was impure, for such life to be burning in his veins, Leof
barely cold in his grave… He tried to retreat, but Ben wasn’t
having any of that, surging forwards in pursuit.
Oh, it was good. Cai let go and fought for
his life. He didn’t hear the silence that came down over the ruined
hall, didn’t notice that the monks had stopped their practice and
were standing in a frightened clump. Ben was calling his name, but
he didn’t want to stop. Why was Ben blocking him, not responding to
his moves? One block—another—until on the third Ben’s pole snapped
under the assault, dropping Cai hard against his chest.
“Caius, please. The
abbot!”
Cai froze. Ben’s hands were tight on
his shoulders, immobilising him. Panting, Cai came back from his
fugue far enough to see not just Aelfric but Laban and the three
other Canterbury clerics lined up on the far side of the
hall.
He pushed out of Ben’s arms. He
couldn’t imagine why he had feared or hated these men for one
instant. They were nothing to him—scrawny black-robed skeletons he
could knock down with one hand. He strode through the crowd of his
brethren, who parted to make way for him, and took a running leap
up onto the lintel stone once more. “Good day, my lord abbot,” he
shouted, cheerfully brandishing the pole. “How may I help
you?”
Aelfric stepped forwards. He was pale,
and he hadn’t managed to compose his face into its crow-like scowl.
“What… What is the meaning of this?”
Cai glanced back at the monks. It was
well enough for him to take his own monastic life in his hands,
wasn’t it? But his little army hadn’t bargained for this. “It’s
drill practice,” he called out, making sure they heard. “And I am
responsible for it. Ben, will you take these men to the armoury and
make sure the weapons are all put away? I want to speak to
Aelfric.”
He waited till the last of the monks
had filed out of the hall, their faces averted from Laban’s glare.
Aelfric didn’t even look at them. His gaze was fixed on Cai, as if
reassessing him. “Explain yourself.”
“I will. I will defend you
from the demons—yes, even you—next time they come. Just in case
they aren’t to be deterred by prayer.”
Aelfric seemed to take this in. Cai
wondered what had changed inside the narrow, tonsured head—or what
had changed in himself, to make those harsh features shadow with